Podcasts about pebkac

The four PEBKAC hosts are back at it once again!   

PEBKAC

Flappy bird memories, Apple's Glow Up, Shane gets Dan to talk about Tesla, and MORE!

Late upload. Tech issue. Or perhaps PEBKAC.

Chris spends the week in a VR desktop, revealing the glitches, gains, and VR's open-source future.

The boys tear into the Google I/O 2023 new and notables...at least I think that's what we talked about... there were beers.

Two PEBKAC hosts once again embark down a long lonesome road.  This week the phone saga comes to a final conclusion, Windows 11 gets another shot, and Shane gives Thomas some professional advice.  All this and more on in...the...PEBKAC.

It's a PEBKAC brew-haha and nothing more!

PEBKAC Variety hour.  Closing out Thomas'  ticketmaster saga, Plex updates, Okta updates, the Tesla Rodeo, and more!

The PEBKAC boys tear into some Raspberry Pi retro rigs, Chrome OS as a viable Windows replacement (again), and the cool retro factor that is LodgeNet.

The four PEBKAC crew members are in-person together for the first time in a long time!  Tesla FSD and Video Monitoring, GoDaddy Breach of the Week, Password Managers, Cloud Storage, Multi-Factor, and more!

Apple Fight 2021 Mark II: Dan's got a new computer!

The entire PEBKAC crew strolls up to the table and dig into a new Elder Scrolls game, and a few heavy-hitting breaches!

Windows 11 gets its time in the PEBKAC sun.

Shane dives in to add a few more items into the Apple stew and the team discusses the validity of Macbooks.

This week is a potpourri of tech.

The last PEBKAC of the year and it is a chonky one!  The crew tried to stuff as much goodness in!  We're talking new consoles, arcade machine setups, HAM radio operation, bad web meeting participants, and a patented 10 Stupid things of 2020 - tech edition!

A trinity of PEBKAC pals discuss standing desks, couch surfing keyboards, the future of Google Stadia, and the current state of net-gen console price gouging.

This is a nutty one!  It slides all over the place from hitchhiking robots to high-pitched squirrels! 

This week we learn about Subway "bread", serious Azure outages, 911 disruption, and why Cloudflare is so awesome.

Somky arrives to the F1C Studios in Brookhaven, GA late as usual, while Nick proves PEBKAC errors can happen to everyone.  Eventually they F1C Boys pretend to be Hobo and Buxton, drinking delicious Belgian Beers and talking lots and lots of trash for the Half Centennial Podcast.

The PEBKAC social hour.  The crew discusses a few of their current nerdy projects, make some foolish purchases, get nostalgic on cell phones, and discuss some of the news.  Breach of the Week makes an appearance with the unfortunate news at GARMIN. 

The PEBKAC dives into some lo-fi tinfoil hacks and brute forcing and learn about Dan's TIKTOK obsession.

On this edition of PEBKAC... Honda Breach, IBM Cloud Outage, Tesla Stonks, Brave's oopsie, and pLaYsTaTiOn 5 NeWzZz.

This week the PEBKAC goes lo-fi discussing payphones, desk phones, and analog telephone adapters.  Plenty more system admin goodness tossed in for good measure.

This freewheeling 203rd episode of the PEBKAC podcast brings an end to the iPhone SE 2020 debate, plans for an upcoming watch party, some fun Azure facts, and more!

The PEBKAC crew is laying low and recording another batch of PEBKAC!  Breaking down some tech discounts, the latest trouble with Google Stadia, and so much misc!

The entire PEBKAC clan pours one out for Larry Tesler, discusses some leaky S3 buckets, resurrected video games, and more!

This week the PEBKAC crew chat about new IoT junk, more breaches, the current state of MoviePass, Unifi's troubles, and more!   Don’t forget to join us on Discord discord.gg/Zb2Srf  

A couple of PEBKAC bros hang out and chat about sys admin woes, more breaches, updates to past breaches, and the new Microsoft Edge! Don’t forget to join us on Discord discord.gg/Zb2Srf

New Year New Episode!  This week is full of goodness!  Sonos' sham of a recycling program, things NOT to do with your Christmas gifts, and another BREACH OF THE WEEK! Don’t forget to join us on Discord discord.gg/Zb2Srf

In the fall of 2019 a series of fortunate events led Technically Religious contributor Leon Adato to take a journey of a lifetime. He transformed an unexpected convention trip to Barcelona into a mission to bring a Torah back to the US from Israel. Like the movie that this episode is named for, along the way he experienced unexpected challenges and met larger-than-life characters who helped him on his way. Listen now, or read the transcript below. Kate:                                     00:00                     Welcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experience we have as people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion or lack thereof. We're here to explore ways we make our career. Is IT professionals mesh or at least not conflict with our religious life. This is Technically Religious. Josh:                                      00:24                     In the fall of 2019 a series of fortunate events led Technically Religious contributor, Leon Adato, to take a journey of a lifetime. He transformed an unexpected convention trip to Barcelona into a mission to bring a Torah back to the U S from Israel. Like the movie that this episode is named for, along the way, he experienced unexpected challenges and met larger than life characters who helped him on his way. I'm Josh Biggley and the other voices you're going to hear on this episode are my partner in crime, Leon, Adato. Leon:                                     00:57                     Hello. Josh:                                      00:59                     Alright, Leon. You know how this goes, time for some shameless self promotion. So tell us who you are and where we can find you. Leon:                                     01:06                     Fantastic. I am Leon Adato, as we've said, probably three times already. I am a Head Geek at SolarWinds. Uh, you can find me on the twitters @leonadato and you can also read my pontificating about monitoring and other things at adatosystems.com and I identify religiously as an Orthodox Jew. Josh:                                      01:26                     Wonderful! And I'm Josh Biggley. Uh, this is the first time I think we've officially announced that I am a TechOps Strategy Consultant with New Relic. Uh, super excited about that. Started two weeks ago and I feel like I'm living the dream. Leon:                                     01:40                     Mazal Tov, mazel tov! Josh:                                      01:41                     Mazal Tov indeed. Uh, you can find me on the Twitters, uh, @Jbiggley. Uh, I've actually shut down all of my, all of my um, non-work related discussions maybe I'm just tired of social media. I don't know. Um, but I do identify as post-Mormon. Um, so Leon, you, you had a trip. Leon:                                     02:02                     I did. I did. And, but before we dive into the particulars of the trip, which is sort of the central part of this episode, I want to talk about something that I think is near and dear to a lot of it practitioners, which is travel hacking. Josh:                                      02:16                     Oh yes, yes, please. Leon:                                     02:18                     Because a lot of the, a lot of the parts of the trip that I took were predicated on or were built on my ability to, um, travel both comfortably and also efficiently. Um, you know, not being independently wealthy as I think all of our listeners are. And if you are a listener and you're independently wealthy, please consider taking a sponsorship. Um, we would love to, we'd love to have your support. Um, in any case, uh, I wanted to take a minute and talk about some things that I've learned over the last five and a half, almost six years as a head geek doing a lot of traveling. And Josh, I know that you have stuff to contribute. Josh:                                      02:57                     I'm actually going to do a lot of listening here because, uh, as part and parcel of my new job, I'm going to be doing a fair bit of traveling. So, uh, I mean I'm going to take some notes. Uh, wait, no, hold on. We're going to put the details in the show notes. I'm not taking notes. Leon:                                     03:11                     Very good. Okay, good. I, you know, and we forgot to mention that earlier, so that was a nice way to slide it in there. The first point, especially when we're talking about non US/Canada travel is all you need to do is get to Europe. Everything else is cheap. Once you do that, just get to Europe. I think a lot of Americans, and I'm assuming also Canadians, um, think, well, I'm going to go from, you know, France to Italy to this and they feel like they have to book it all out from the American perspective and you can, it's going to cost a lot of money. The reality is that just land anywhere in Europe, it doesn't have to be your final destination. It doesn't even have to be on your itinerary. Wherever it's cheapest to land get there because once you're on the continent at that point, getting around is ridiculously cheap. You live, for example, uh, you can get a one week pass on the train system for about a hundred dollars US and that allows you to get on and off the train as much as you want. So you can go from city to city and if you get someplace and it's like, wow, I didn't even expect to be here and it's beautiful here and I want to spend more time, fine, stay here and get on the train tomorrow or the day after or whatever. Also, there's a lot of cheap airlines, um, easy jets, one of them, but there's others. So again, just get into the region and from there you can build your trip off of that. Another thing is airline travel points are your friend and therefore, um, you want to work those points. And just to give you an example, a round trip ticket from the U S to Israel on United. I happened to be a United flyer. That's my airline of choice a is 80,000 points. Round trip from Barcelona is 30,000 points. You know, I was already, as we'll get into, I was already going to be in Barcelona, so I was able to build off of that to go do something else. Credit cards are a great tool for travel if they make sense for you. I'm not insisting that people get involved in credit cards. You get into credit card debt. I know that it's a slippery slope for a lot of folks, but the reality is that there are a lot of cards you can get that come with a signing bonus and you get 50, 60, 100,000 points. That's a European trip right there. Just that, you know, especially if it's a credit card that you know you're not going to use after that and you've got the, the willpower to do it. Josh:                                      05:25                     I liked that actually. I did. I didn't use that piece of advice. Um, when I started my new job, I, I, I am an Air Canada flyer because I'm in Canada and there's really two airlines, so yay. Star Alliance partner. Um, right. Got out, went out and got myself a credit card. They gave me, uh, a bonus for signing up and then a bonus if I spent more than X number of dollars, which wasn't a problem because it's also their credit card, I used to reimburse all my expenses. Leon:                                     05:50                     So as an IT pro, as long as your company doesn't have a thing against it, use that credit card. First of all, you get all of your perks if you use that card rather than the corporate card. And yeah, you get, even if even if the dollars are going to be reimbursed, you get the points for the miles. And to your point, especially if you know you're going to do a lot of travel, take a look at, you know, a lot of credit cards and a lot of airlines have a card that gives you club access. It costs. For example, the..., I have the chase United card. It is I think $400 a year for a fee. Now, $200 of that are refunded to me if they're travel related. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about taking a taxi or an Uber or Lyft or a hotel room or an extra bag that I'm checking in or whatever, whatever it is, those $200 get reimbursed right off the top second. If I need to get something like nexus or global entry or TSA pre that's covered, you're automatically covered with that, but on top of it, it gets you automatic access to the airline club and the reason why you want that there's, there's the living, the high life aspect, right? You walk in there, they treat you nice, you free drinks, there's food, there's even showers and stuff like that. That's nice. However, that's not the perk. The perk is that there's a different category of travel agent who works inside the club and I really believe that those agents are exclusively graduates of Hogwarts, school of witchcraft and wizardry because they will make things happen that can't happen anywhere else. I have gotten can't, you know, flights canceled, bumped off my flight, missed my flight, whatever. And I walk into the club and I tell them, Hey, this happened and type, type, type, type, type, Mr Adato, I've got you on the very next flight. There wasn't a very next flight. There is now. Oh wow. I mean like they literally conjure a new airplane. I don't know. They're magic people. That is worth the price of the card right there is having that, that fallback. So that's another thing. You had something about your status. Josh:                                      07:57                     I mean, I don't do a lot of traveling, but I am, I got silver status, um, uh, on Air Canada this year and I am five segments away from getting to gold status when traveling first, getting on the plane before, um, you know, zones three, four and five is pretty awesome because everyone wants to take their non-checked bags with them. So everyone's trying to cram their carry-ons. So you get in early, you always are gonna find some carry on space second, um, you, you're going to get your pick of seats. I mean, not first class. Sometimes you get a first class upgrade, but you're going to get that premium economy. Um, so you actually have leg room. Um, and I mean third, you just want the ability to access some of the perks that come along with it. Like, Hey, if you rent at the Marriott hotels, you automatically get, um, 250 or 500 points. Little things like that. And I think that's another hack. Let's make sure we're stacking our, um, our rewards. You know, if Air Canada and Marriott have a, an agreement which they do, um, Hey, um, fly air Canada and stay at a Marriott hotel. Fortunately without even planning it, I always fly Air Canada, uh, or star Alliance partner. And I also, um, usually stay at a Marriott hotel, uh, when it makes sense, uh, only because it was really close to, um, you know, our, our previous employer, um, and made just perfect sense and there was, it was a great rate. So yeah, I mean, find those, find those synergies and uh, and work them. Leon:                                     09:33                     I will also say don't get sort of psychologically locked in. Sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes you can't fly your preferred airline, you can't do that. But you know, have an eye for that. And then the last thing, and this is something I think as Americans were less, I don't know, less comfortable with, is the whole cell phone thing. You know, because America is so just geographically big and the carriers cover such a large range. I think once we get into the European theater, uh, the idea of what do we do with my cell phone comes up now, I will tell you I solved this this year by moving to Google Fi which rides on top of networks in almost every country. And so I didn't have to think about it. I landed and literally got a message. "Hey, good to know that you're in Switzerland right now and we've got you covered." Like literally a pop up on my phone came up and said, but as a non-American, you know, what advice do you have? Josh:                                      10:27                     The advice that I've always been given and that I know that a few friends of mine who travel extensively always say is, um, don't roam Europe. Yes. All the cell phone companies. And including, you know, bell who I'm now with so that I can call the U S without unlimited calling. Um, they will tell you that you can roam for like $12 or $15 a day. The reality is don't roam. If you're going to be in Europe for any period of time, buy a SIM card. Um, I mean there's, they're like $25 for unlimited calling, uh, uh, a very generous helping of data. Uh, if you're going to use all of that, you should probably get out and see the sites a little more. Leon:                                     11:09                     So my son, this is going to factor into the longer story, but my son is, uh, in Israel in a hundred gig data SIM card is effectively $12. Leon:                                     11:19                     Oh, come on! Leon:                                     11:19                     If you're going to be there for a week or two or whatever it is, and you're going to use a hundred gig of cell data yet, like you said, you're doing your traveling wrong. Josh:                                      11:28                     You are definitely travel or you're, or you're traveling all sorts of, right. I don't know. Maybe you're live streaming. Leon:                                     11:34                     Yeah, maybe a live streaming. Sure. Okay. Josh:                                      11:36                     Streaming your entire trip. I mean, not, maybe that's a thing. Leon:                                     11:38                     Okay. So that's, that's, you know, part one, travel hacking, just general travel hacking ideas. And some of that will factor into the story. But I, I think we want to pivot now into the story of me bringing back the Torah. Um, again, the Frisco kid for those people who aren't familiar is a wonderful movie with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford story of a sort of a naive rabbi from Poland who travels across America to deliver a Torah to, uh, San Francisco. Uh, I felt very much like that along the way. Where it started was that I was set up to go to VMworld Europe this year, which is in Barcelona. And when I realized that that was a thing, I immediately decided I was going to take a cheap flight to Israel to visit my son who's there at Yeshiva. Josh:                                      12:22                     No, wait, hold on, Leon. Yeah. Um, I think last time we talked your son was struggling with Yeshiva. Leon:                                     12:29                     Yeah, he was. And in fact, um, when we talked about it, he was coming home. Like that night there was a flurry of activity. There were some correct course corrections made and some assurances made. And in fact he was able to feel comfortable staying with 15 minutes to spare. Josh:                                      12:46                     Wow. Fantastic. Leon:                                     12:47                     Yeah. So he was there and you know, he's doing, he is doing much better and growing and learning and doing the things that you want to do. But I was going to be there and I thought this is a wonderful chance for me to check up on him and see what he gets to see. And so I did that. And like I said before, the flight from Barcelona to Israel is significantly cheaper than the flight from the U S so it made a lot of sense. You know, I found the cheapest code partners that I could find and I got those flights booked. And so I mentioned to my, to my rabbi, just in passing, I said, Hey, I'm going to visit my son and he's, you know, in Israel. And he said, Oh, if you're going to be in Israel while you're there, can you bring a Torah back with you? And I said, well, yeah, sure, I guess. Sure. And he immediately, his entire tone changed. Like he was surprised like, well you mean it like will you ask me to, sure. Is that, are you sure? He must have asked me if I was sure five times until finally I said, what are you not telling me about this? You know, because I thought I'm bringing a Torah back. Is there something else I should know? Is there some major risks that I'm unaware of? What's what's going on Josh:                                      13:47                     Now, to be clear, we are talking about the first five books of the old Testament. Right? Leon:                                     13:53                     Right. So, so in this context, when I say bringing back a Torah, it is the scroll and we'll have pictures of it in the show notes, but it's just, it is, it is a, you know, scroll of parchment may, it can range in size from let's say, you know, two feet long and you know, kind of like, you know, eight inches wide and maybe 10 pounds and it can get, they can be larger than that, but, Josh:                                      14:14                     okay. Well I just wanted to make sure that Torah wasn't code for, I don't know. An alligator. But apparently you can't bring on the airlines. I, I, Leon:                                     14:24                     They really don't allow emotional support alligators anymore. Josh:                                      14:28                     Oh, weird. Leon:                                     14:29                     I know. I know. Um, so yeah, it's, it's a fairly specific object and, and non-dangerous it doesn't bite or anything like that from an it perspective because we want to talk about the technically part as well as the religiously parked. I was immediately struck by what happens when you volunteer for a project that nobody expects you to say yes to. My rabbi had made a comment sort of as a, and I took it seriously and all of a sudden he was sort of stuck like, what do well, but nobody would say yes to that. And, um, you know, we, I think many of us have been in that situation with projects where it's like, Hey, who wants to do X? You know, who wants to write that ebook? Or who wants to, yes, please. May I? And I was like, no, you don't. You don't really want to do that. I'm like, Oh yeah, I totally wanted to. Josh:                                      15:16                     Uh, I think we all definitely need a Leon Adato on our teams to, uh, write all the documentation, uh, in fun ebook style. Leon:                                     15:24                     Yes, absolutely. Um, I think that, you know, for any tech writers who are here, you can men, you can talk in the comments to this post on TechnicallyReligious.com and say I'm available and I will volunteer to write eBooks also, you know, uh, volunteer meaning pay me. But, um, so I think from an it perspective though, there's some lessons that we can pull from this just even at this point in the story, you know, volunteering for things that other people consider to be a hard job is a really good career idea. Josh:                                      15:53                     Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. Over the last five and a half years. Um, well, I mean, let's bring up the story, right? Hey Josh, it'd be really awesome if, you know, you joined, you know, Cardinal Health and you know, came to work for Leon Adato and then four days later someone quit on me. Leon:                                     16:15                     Okay. It was to become head gig and SolarWinds. Like, I couldn't not take that opportunity, but yes, I, Josh:                                      16:22                     Yeah, but yeah, it's saying yes to opportunities even when they're hard, like, Hey, will you fill Leon shoes? I'll try it. It works out really well. And that really set me up for, for my entire career at a, at Cardinal Health, right. I as a non-cloud engineer, I was the co lead of the cloud community of practice as a just an engineer, uh, air quote, just an engineer, not a senior engineer. Um, I was the enterprise monitoring representative on the smash committee. It's not a whole idea of always be learning and you don't know that you can or cannot do something until you volunteer to do it and Hey, why not do it in a, what should be a safe space, um, of work. Yes. It means putting yourself out there. Yes. It means being risky. Yes. It means you have to trust your colleagues, but Oh my goodness. If you're going to try something, try it with the tactical support of a really strong team. Leon:                                     17:19                     I also want to say that, you know, I got a lot of pushback from, from my Rabbi. Are you sure? Are you really sure? Do you mean it? Sometimes that's a warning sign. Sometimes when people say, you know, when nobody else is volunteering and the person in charge is, is really looking for that confirmation, it's a clue that this is not, you might've missed something. So ask questions. Not just the people in charge, but ask other folks, you know? But at a certain point, you also recognize that what appears to impossible or odious or frustrating kind of work that may not be how you see it. And that means that that's your superpower. So again, I love writing. I really do. And so while we're, a lot of other people in it will say, you know, write something. Are you joking? I'd rather take a fork through the eyeball. I'm like, I really wish I had more time to do this. That just happens to be the thing that I like. Recognize when that's the case and run with it. Josh:                                      18:19                     My super power is apparently financial models. Right? Which is totally weird. Since I failed math in ninth grade. So Zack Mutchler and I who were colleagues up until two weeks ago, despises financial models. He never wants to do that. And I'm like, Oh my goodness, please. Yes, let me, it's, it's my grounding place. If I can figure out how it works financially, then I'll go and figure out how the technology works. So, um, yeah, I, I will volunteer to do financial models any day of the week. Yeah. Leon:                                     18:50                     And that's something I would never do. Right. Okay. All right. So, so fast forward, um, you know, VMworld Barcelona is wonderful and I wrote some blog posts about it and then I, you know, went from there to Israel and had a great week with my son and had a great time. And I even got a chance to speak at cloud native day in Israel. Um, so I had called a friend of mine, Sharone Zitzman and said, "Hey, I'm..." She has kids. and she's Israeli, "...so I'm going to be there with myself. What's really fun things to do?" And she said, "Oh, you're going to be there. I'm running a convention. Can you speak?" Like Sharon, that's not why I, that's not what I called you for is to do another convention talk. But here I am. So I did that. Now, what's interesting about this, and this is relevant to this story, is that, um, the morning of the convention, it happens to be a Tuesday, uh, Israel executed an airstrike that killed, uh, uh, Palestinian Islamic jihad commander. And, uh, I know that it gets political. It gets into, you know, the whole middle East politics and things. So a trigger warning up front about that for people who feel strongly about it. But there was a, uh, an airstrike that killed this Islamic jihad commander and that triggered a retaliatory strike of 160 rockets that were fired from Gaza into Israel. And six of those reached Tel Aviv, which meant that the talk I was giving in Tel Aviv, you know, might not happen. And we were on our way from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and I was getting emails that, you know, despite the fact that businesses and schools had been ordered to shut down, the convention was permitted to continue. Um, and then I got a call from the organizer who said, "You know, if you don't want to come in, if you're not comfortable, if it makes you nervous, I completely understand." Nope, we're on our way. It's fine. You know, 160 rockets, just another day in Israel. Here we go. So I went in and, and gave the talk and that was fine. So the next day, Wednesday I'm set to fly home. It's me, my luggage and the Torah. Um, so I need to describe in a little bit more detailed what this is. So the Torah is a scroll, it's on two wooden dowels. And um, like I said, it can be anywhere from say a foot and a half to three feet tall or long and you know, six, eight inches a foot wide when you roll it up and everything. So that's wrapped up, you know, packed up nice and tight and bubble wrap and wrapped in plastic and put into a a duffle bag that I can take with me. Then there's a box that goes in because, uh, some Torahs are just the scroll, but some come in their own sort of self contained container and this is called an Aron. So when I use that word from now on in the Aron is the box that comes in and this is a circular box. It's about two and a half, three feet high, about a foot in diameter. It's usually made out of plywood and covered in silver and has all sorts of literally bells hanging off of it. Uh, so that's, that's also there. Now the, the Torah itself cannot be checked as luggage. You treat it with respect and you know, I wouldn't check my grandmother is luggage. I'm not going to check the Torah, his luggage either. Um, so that has to come with me on the plane. Uh, you don't have to buy it its own seat, but you do have to bring it with you on the plane. It can't be checked as luggage. The Aron, the box can be checked as luggage. So that was all packed up. Also, it was wrapped nice and tight and foam and bubble wrap. And you know, a layer of plastic just to keep it all self contained. And that was in another duffle bag. And the Torah itself, uh, it turns out was about 25-30 pounds and the, our own was probably closer to 40 pounds. Josh:                                      22:24                     Oh wow. Okay. Leon:                                     22:25                     Along with my overloaded suitcase cause it had all the convention crap I had collected and a couple of things my son wanted to send home with me and a pita maker that I bought while I was in Israel for my wife, like one does. Right, right. All right. I just need to remind you at this point in the story that I had booked my flight, uh, my flights back and forth before I knew I was bringing the Torah. And it was also predicated on this convention trip. So my flights were Barcelona, Israel, and then Israel, Barcelona and work was paying for the Cleveland, Barcelona, Barcelona, Cleveland leg. So I had these two separate trips that, that dovetailed, that I booked before I knew I was bringing a Torah. And the second thing I wanna remind you is that there were 160 rockets fired from, you know, Gaza into Israel the day before I flew. And the reason I mentioned this is because of the flight home was on Turkish airlines. Josh:                                      23:13                     I mean... what??? Leon:                                     23:13                     It was on Turkish airlines. Yeah. Josh:                                      23:16                     So a Jewish dude. Leon:                                     23:18                     Yeah. Orthodox Jewish dude flying on Turkish airlines. Okay, I'm going to give this spoiler Turkish airlines rocks. They are amazing people. Uh, they, everybody was delightful and lovely. So I'm just going to, I'm going to put that out up front. Okay. However, I didn't know what to expect. I also want to point out that, um, it, Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, the, the airport in Israel, all of the check areas, uh, are on the same level when you walk in the door, except for Turkish airlines, which is two floors down and off to the right in its own little section. And that section is predominantly a Palestinian Arabic travelers going back and forth. So I'm traveling as, as incognito as I possibly can. For those people who've seen me. I have little fringy things hanging out of my, uh, you know, out of my shirt, the tzitzit, those were tucked in a, I wear a kippah, but I was wearing a ball cap over it. I just wanted to be like as nonchalantly American as I possibly could be. Just again, didn't want to be in people's face, especially given what was happening, you know, that day and the day before. I get up to the checkout counter and delightful, a Palestinian young lady is checking me in and I give her the our own first because if there's gonna be a problem with my tickets, because I have three, I have three bags. I was only supposed to be traveling with one, they're overweight. There's a lot of extra charges on me. I want to make sure the, our own gets on before, you know, before anything else happens. So she asked me "Mah zeh?", what is that? My Hebrew is very, very bad. So in English I, I said "it's, um, it's a box that a Torah goes in?" I'm not sure if any of these words are going to have any meaning to anybody. And she looks at the duffle hanging off my shoulder and she says, "Zeh sefer Torah?" that bag over there, that's a safer tour. That's a, that's a Holy Torah? "Ken". I said, yes. "Ah, very good." She puts a fragile sticker on the bag that has the our own on it and she says, please take this off. We will use special handling for this. And then she takes my other bag, which is overweight and she puts a heavy sticker on it and off it goes. And then she takes my other bag and off it goes and I have my credit card out. I said, "I know this is going to cost." And she says, "There is no charge." Josh:                                      25:34                     Waaaaaat??? Leon:                                     25:34                     I know. I literally said, "no, no, I just gave you three bags like I have to pay for these " She says "No, no, no, it is all good." Okay. And then she hands me a card, she says, this is a pass for the VIP lounge. Please enjoy. Josh:                                      25:49                     Wow. Leon:                                     25:50                     Okay. So now I have to take the Aron to special handling. So I take it around the corner to the special handling air. It's where it just right there and these two Palestinian guys are, you know, you know Israeli Palestinian, Israeli guys are there and uh, they open the bag and it's of course wrapped in bubble wrap, wrapped in plastic wrap and whatever, and they put it through the x-ray. Now I just want to remind you, it is a, a wooden box wrapped in silver wrapped in bubble wrap, et cetera. What's that gonna look like on the X Ray? It's gonna look like a big metal tube. So these guys, these guys like we're going to have to open this up. It had been so carefully, professionally packed and look, you're going to do what you're going to do, right? You've got to do it. So they open it up and they're like, yup, that's exactly what we thought we were gonna say there. And then immediately pull out their own roll of bubble wrap and they wrap it up just as good as it had been before. Just boom, boom, boom, wrap it up, put it back in the bag and off it goes. Like no problem. No. You can also say that, you know, tourists coming back from Israel is something that is seen a lot at Ben Gurion airport. That's a pretty normal thing. So, okay, so I get through the rest of security. I get to the lounge, I have a delightful time in the lounge. Um, get on my plane. My flight is going on Turkish airlines from Tel Aviv to Istanbul. Of course, that's the, the, you know, hub for that. Change. planes, go from Istanbul to Barcelona and that's where I have to change flights again. So I'm stay overnight in Barcelona, get up the next morning, come back to Barcelona airport, and I'm basically doing the same thing all over again. I get into check in this time it's United and, uh, this time everything's going to happen except it's going to happen in Spanish. Now my Spanish is better than my Hebrew. Uh, it's not great, but it's better than than that. And so I get to the line and uh, you know, get through the line and I get up to the guy at the counter and he once again, you know, I hand him the Aron and I put it up on the conveyor and he says, "well, what's that?" All right, I'm talking to you in a predominantly Christian country. How am I gonna explain this? "Uh, it's a box that, that a Torah scroll, a Holy scroll goes into," I'm, I'm trying to figure out how to say this. And he spoke English, but I'm still, and he says, "Oh," like recognition dawned and his face, he hands me a sticker that's his fragile, he says, would you like to put that on here? Okay, fine. So I put the sticker on, he says, "okay, please take it off and we'll special handle it in the moment." And he takes my bag, the overweight one, and he takes the other bag and I pull up my credit card cause I'm going to pay. And he's like, "no charge." Like what is this? No, no, no charge. And again, he hands me a pass. He says, "here's a pass to the VIP lounge, please enjoy." Josh:                                      28:32                     Oh my goodness. Leon:                                     28:33                     Okay. He gets up. Now there's a line of people behind me. He says, please follow me. So I follow him. There's, there's other people, you know, it's not like he left the line waiting, but you know, I follow him around to where the special handling area is. And he says, please "put this up on the conveyor." Like he's standing, he's standing right there, but please put on me. So I put on the conveyor and I put it, apparently the wrong direction, "would you please turn it?" And I realized at that moment, he's not touching this thing. So I turn it and it goes and it goes on and he comes down and as we're walking back, he says, "We see this sometimes Shalom." Josh:                                      29:06                     Oh my goodness, I've got chills. Leon chills. Leon:                                     29:09                     So I go through Barcelona airport security and, and here I get stuck again because the Torah again is wrapped in bubble wrap, whatever. It's just this big blob on the x-ray. "Que es esto?"Kay the guy says, uh, "Halbas Ingles?". No. Okay. Here we go. There's, there's a phrase that you have that I try to say it's really bad. So for those native Spanish speakers, please feel free to mock me. "Una objeto religioso" it's a religious object. "Yo no comprendo." "Una scrol de Bible?" Like now I'm running out of words here to describe what a Torah is to the security dude in Barcelona airport. And so he calls the supervisor over and they have a quick conversation and she looks at me and she says a word, which if you're ever in Spain is the most important word you can possibly know in Spain. It's Vale. Vale means okay. In the same way that we would use it, it's a question. It's an answer. It's a statement. It's everything. Vale. So I say "Vale??" and she says, "Tu puedas va. Vale", You can go. Okay. So I go, I go to the, I go to the lounge, have another delightful time. I get on, uh, the airplane. I should mention one of the other things, one of the other issues. Remember I said the Torah can't be checked as baggage. So each time I'm getting on the plane, I'm worried that they're going to gate check this extra piece of luggage, this Torah, because it can't go. Never happened. Each time I would go to the flight attendants say, "I'm really sorry. I know this is sort of oversized. It's, it's a few inches larger than normal carry on, you know, but it's, it's a religious object." Again, I'm, I'm describing it in, in non-Jewish terms and it really, and they're like, "no problem. Put it right up there. It's fine." Like it was not a problem at all. Um, but back to your point about being able to check on early, it really helped to know that I was one of the first people boarding, so there was going to be overhead space. It made a difference in this case. So we're flying in and uh, you know, Barcelona, New Jersey, I land in New Jersey at Newark airport and that's when I realize I have this incredibly valuable object. How do you claim a Torah at immigration? Like how do you, Josh:                                      31:21                     how do you claim?... Leon:                                     31:23                     ...What is it worth? So I'm real quick texting a bunch of people like people do this, how do you do whatever they say? It's not worth anything to anybody else. Yes, you're right. We would pay a lot of money for it, but it's not actually on the street worth anything, so just don't claim it. It turns out however that something else happened. I have global entry. Back to the travel hacking. I have TSA pre. I also have global entry, which means that I can go through the really fast lane when I come in through the country, but I also on my phone have the TSA app, which allows you to do the claim form on the plane four hours ahead of landing and put everything in there and then the record's already in there. However, don't do both. It turns out that if you do both, it creates a conflicting record in immigration systems that if you're, if you have Global Entry, you simply use global entry, use the paper form and go through. I didn't know that, so I did both. So I get through personal immigration and they say, Oh yeah, if you're going to do, you know, so I scan my phone app and I show them my Global Entry and they're like, the Global Entry doesn't count because you did the phone app, it's going to create a conflict. Don't do that. So okay, fine. So then when I'm pick up my bags and I'm going to go through the check, I go through global entry and the guy sees the phone app and he spends a good solid like two minutes. "Why did you do that? You already have Global Entry. Why did you do the TSA App?" "I didn't know it was going to create a problem." This is... "Just please next time don't do that." And he waves me through an off I go. He didn't ever look at the fact that I had four pieces of luggage, you know, I'm a single guy going through, didn't even pay attention to that. He was more concerned about the fact that I had made an IT error. Josh:                                      33:06                     Lovely, yes, you had done the steps out of order. Incorrect. The problem exists between the keyboard and the chair, obviously. Leon:                                     33:17                     Right? So, right. PEBKAC rules. I am clearly the ID10T error of the day. That was the problem, not the toy, the ancient Torah scroll and the silver case and that, that wasn't okay. So I get through and uh, I get home and uh, one of the lessons to, to spin this back around again to the more technical is that I had, I knew the entire flight plan. I knew each of the steps along the way. I knew that I was gonna have personal security at these places and I was gonna have luggage security at these places. I knew I was going to have all these things. I had my steps in a row, but I, I took each step as it came. I didn't take a hiccup or an issue at one moment as a sign of things to come. Good or bad. I really, and I think that as IT professionals, we also need to think about that. That, you know, we have a project, we know what the project plan is. Things are going to work, other things aren't going to work. That doesn't mean it's a sign of how the whole project is going to go. That each moment is its own moment and doesn't necessarily have bearing on the next moment to come. Josh:                                      34:28                     Yeah. I, when we think about how, how do you build a resilient system, there are two things that you factor in. One is a system that is resistant to failure and a system that can quickly recover from failure because there is no such thing as no downtime. It does not exist. There will always be failures, right? And as IT professionals, we need to figure that out, not just in the technology but also in the way that we execute projects in the way that we execute our careers. I mean, it's all about that personal, professional resilience. Failure is going to happen. Roll with the punches Leon:                                     35:12                     And you know, don't, yeah, don't imagine the punches aren't going to come, but just because one step along the way knocked you down doesn't mean every step is going to knock you down. It's not. Um, so we got it back to America. Um, in the show notes, I will link to the live tweeting I did of the entire process and a picture of the Torah itself so you can see it in its, in its new home. But after I, I got back, I went over to the rabbi's house and the rabbi's wife and I were, and she said something very interesting and I have to give you a little bit of history. So as I mentioned before, um, the kind of Jewish we are or the culture that we come from is the Spanish Jewish culture. So that means that, uh, after the expulsion of the Jews from Israel in 72 CE, after the second destruction, they settled in Spain and they lived in Spain until about 1492 during, you know, the Inquisition. And then our family, my Rabbi's family and my family settled from Spain into Istanbul and they lived in Istanbul, in a little town outside of his temple until about 1920. And that's when they came to America. So when I got everything back and I was sitting at the house and I was talking to her, she said, you know that Torah stopped every place our family lived. And I got chills. It went from Israel to Istanbul to Spain to America. And if I had said to you, Hey Josh, you know, I just want bring a Torah back but I want to do this really, really cool thing. I'm going to stop every place or a, you would tell me, Leon, you are way overthinking this and just bring the thing back and be done with it. But it just happened. It just, you know, it just worked out that way. Leon:                                     36:49                     And again, from an it perspective, I think it speaks to that serendipity of life, whether that's religious or it or otherwise. Sometimes you know and have this in caps, you know, things happen for a reason. Trademark, copyright, all rights reserved. Things do happen for a reason. And it's okay to know that that happens. And sometimes you say, I'm just going to see how this works out. I'm going to let things happen. I'm not going to try to control the outcome. I'm not gonna try to make it be something, I'm going to let things go and, and just let it be. I didn't intend for that to be, my travel path, but it did. And, and the experience was that much richer because of it. Josh:                                      37:33                     You know, I, I had an interesting, uh, moment over the past month or so going through the interview process with new Relic and talking to a number of my current team members who were on that interview panel and explaining the journey that I had toward being someone who is, uh, an enterprise monitoring practitioner. And I realized in recounting the journey over the past 20 years that my very first job than IT laid the, the framework for me becoming a, a monitoring practitioner. I worked for a small company, uh, in Michigan that focused on call center software and they designed software that would connect to your PBX, uh, for your call center and would allow you to monitor the phone status of all of your agents and then would correlate all of that data up onto a big screen. That would allow you to run reports. It did call center monitoring my very first job and then my next job had an HP OpenView workstation and then my next job had an HP OpenView work station that I replaced with SolarWinds. It's a wonderful journey. Uh, I, that's, it's, it's weird. I think like you and your Torah story, uh, your Torah journey, you didn't realize the importance of that journey until you paused for a moment to reflect on the journey that you took. And I, I think we have to do IT as well. Sometimes we're so focused on where we want to get to that we forget where we've come from and the power that comes to us. I think that's important, right? Right. What we value in our IT lives. We have to take time to look back what we value in our personal lives and our religious lives. Yeah. You know, I think I'd like to end Leon with a quote from, uh, Ralph Waldo Emerson. So he, you know, prolific writer, um, wrote a series of essays and a second series and an essay entitled experience. He said "To finish the moment, to find the journey's end and every step of the road to live. The greatest number of good hours is wisdom." Destiny:                               39:46                     Thanks for making time for us this week. To hear more of technically religious visit our website, technically religious.com where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions and connect to us on social media. Josh:                                      40:00                     So you brought a Torah back from Israel? Leon:                                     40:03                     And all I got was this t-shirt...I mean, this podcast story.  

The PEBKAC troublemakers discuss the latest Equifax follies, the NordVPN breach, fooling the Galaxy S10 fingerprint reader, and teamviewer getting pwnd! Don’t forget to join us on Discord discord.gg/Zb2Srf

The PEBKAC crew is here in full force so get excited!  Tearing into the latest product announcements from Microsoft and Google! Don’t forget to join us on Discord discord.gg/Zb2Srf

Yup...another year goes by and the PEBKAC crew discusses the latest Apple hardware event. Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf

The PEBKAC crew discusses more data breaches, Yu-Gi-Oh memes, Bixby in the home, and VDI in the home! Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf  

This week the full PEBKAC pack discuss recent breaches and what is in their DEFCON go bag! Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf

This week all four of the PEBKAC hosts live build a new unRAID box, and talk trash about tech. Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf

Google outages, Huawei spys, Breach of the Week, and the PEBKAC coverage of WWDC 2019! Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf  

Canva et Flipboard annoncent toutes les deux s’être fait hacker leurs tables utilisateurs. Les deux entreprises se sont donc fait volés les identifiants, mot de passe cryptés, coordonnées etc….Et toutes les deux annoncent utiliser la fonction de hachage bcrypt pourtant réputée comme infaillible !!! Alors, faut-il en avoir peur ? Dans ce prodcast, je vous […] L’article Salage, Hashage…PEBKAC est apparu en premier sur Le Prodcast.

Alright - lets listen to a couple PEBKAC folks discuss old websites, multi-factor auth, and light bulbs. Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf

This week the Pebs discuss The Google Pixel 3A, Defcon burners, old phones of years past, and much more! Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf

This week the PEBKAC krew discuss burners at DEFCON, Chrome OS, domain "hacking" and get visited by a special guest!! Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf

This week two lone PEBKAC's celebrate Valentines Day the tech way.   Listener discretion is advised.   Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf

The original PEBKAC trio gets together and discusses the Wells Fargo outage, a dead guy stealing 160 million bucks worth of crypto, the latest with Tesla, and more! Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf

A couple PEBKAC podcasts meet up and discuss several Apple issues, LIFX flaws, and the shady dealings at Huawei. Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf

The PEBKAC duo brings on the pain!  TESLA's answer to ICEing, RCS coming to Pixel, Marriot is getting sued, Shane got PWNed...and so did you, and Fortnite gets hacked!   Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf

Happy Holidays from PEBKAC!  Google's Project Stream, Microsoft Stream-Only Xbox, Apple Lawsuits, CenturyLink bullshit, and Amazon Package Thieves gettin OWNED! Don’t forget to join us on Reddit – r/pebkacpodcast Oh! and join us on Discord too discord.gg/Zb2Srf

PEBKAC time.  Giant diamond rings, G Suite Twitter hacks, BGP routing mishaps, dashcam updates, and a little extra just for you.   Don't forget to join us on Reddit - r/pebkacpodcast

It is time for PEBKAC and the four pebholes get riled up talking about some flubs with the latest Windows releases, dashboard cameras, the new Google Home Hub, and all kinds of other stuff!

Oh yeah - it is PEBKAC again!  Time to tear apart Facebook, Google turns 20, iOS 12 issues, Open Source MS-DOS, Elon Musk stepping down, and tearing into The Verge and their crappy PC build guide.

Apple springs a leak, Thomas loses $150 on pot and deploys rclone, Shane gets a Titan, and the latest issues with Fortnite!  All this and more on an exciting episode of PEBKAC podcast!  

PEBKAC crosses two timezones to bring you information about Shane's trip to DEFCON 26, Fax machine exploits, source code leaks on Github, unsecure AWS buckets, and much more!

It is PEBKAC time!  The boyos dive into Comcast leaking WIFI credentials, T-Mobile leaking account information, smart egg cartons, smart tupperware, home automation gear, and so much more!

It is PEBKAC Time!  Shane brings us some vintage phones, Verizon bloatware is a thing, iPhone warranty funny business, Google Duplex thoughts, Android P, and maybe even some PEBKAC merchandising!  

Abandon all hope ye who enter.  Thar be PEBKAC here. Amazon can now "Key" your car, break into any hotel room you want, more 247ai breach victims, Panera Bread gets hacked, and oh so much more! Ladies and Gentlemen...it is PEBKAC time!

All four basic PEBKAC bros hang out around the table and discuss the sad situation in Atlanta, the current Facebook dumpster fire, Chrome OS tablets, Google cracking down on unlicensed Play services, and other things they found amusing.

It is a great day to be a PEBKAC listener!  Alexa is laughing at you, your Oculus Rift is bricked, and Comcast is spying on you.

Its a table full of PEBKAC and wine!  Cali axes the human requirement for self-driving cars, pop-up cameras are a thing, Amazon buys ring, and all the usual tangents you've come to love!  

The Pebkac crew celebrates episode 125 with a real-time riff on episode 1 of the first Pebkac Podcast! Follow us at jerseystudios.net

The Pebkac crew invite some random guy off the street.  This week we mourn the fall of the internet and get a lesson on the how and why of Bitcoin and the state of crypto-currency. Follow us at jerseystudios.net

Oh Hiii Guys. Chuck and Thomas are joined by PEBKAC elite Shane as they do a double feature of Disaster Artist and The Room! Want some of your own Brain Invaders merch?  Check out store.braininvaders.info

The four Pebkac peasants decide that they have something to say!  Firefox Quantum, AWS DeepLense, Numa Numa anniversary, breaches at Uber, the ongoing war between Amazon and Google, aaaaaand Bitcoin thoughts! Protect Net Neutrality!  Head over to freepress for details on calling FCC Chairman Ajit Pai: http://act.freepress.net/call/internet_pai_nn/ Follow us at jerseystudios.net

Before these Pebkac presenters pile on the gravy and turkey they bring you some of our Black Friday wishlist and hash out their ideas for a prosumer screen company. Follow us at jerseystudios.net

A Trio of Pebkacs dive in with a splattering of topics.  The POTUS Twitter account disappears, new phones all around, the specs on the new RAZER phone, early Black Friday deals, wireless charging, and Dan's ongoing car search.   Our Twitter recommendations from the episodes: @nihilist_arbys @swiftonsecurity @sadserver @internetofshit @toool @BoredElonMusk

Nerdy travel tips, Amazon Key nonsense, and Dan's harrowing tale and car quest!  All this and more on another exciting episode of PEBKAC! Follow us at jerseystudios.net

BAKED and AWAKEEpisode 10- WiP Host: Steve Cominski Co-Host: G.W. Masters talktous@bakedandawake.com   13 October 2017 Welcome once again to Baked and Awake. This is Steve, with a few comments before we jump into this week’s debacle I mean- meticulously crafted episode! We are fortunate right now to have an episode at all, as we embarrassingly found ourselves having recorded with the mic settings once again way off- this time too loud/too much gain. It was bad. We almost had to toss the whole episode out- except for the fact that for the first time ever, we taped in parallel with a portable recorder- a freshly acquired, gently used Tascam DR-05.  Well, I still have a lot of work to do on a number of technical fronts, and I did manage to badly bodge the process of pulling files off the recorder and getting them into appropriate sized chunks to be further moved around in lossless .wav format- nevermind. || It’s boring, it's technical, and it all comes down, if you MUST know, to more of a PEBKAC issue than anything else. Suffice to say however, that I managed to pull some (decent) audio off the Tascam, although the “quality” of the discourse is a bit… shall we say coarse? Look- it was supposed to be a downtemposode, and it was. Without the music. And no real agenda. (But don’t worry- we had weed)! So, you may begin to get an idea of where this went. Anyhoo- I ended up cutting a lot of it due to still not being in love with the audio’s physical qualities, but also due to a general lack of real information being surfaced for the audience. George and I talked a lot both before and after turning on the recorders that evening- and I wish we had more of it because we “lost” (in the can but sounds atrocious) some great stuff with George talking about his photography and working in public. It’s ok though, because we still have George, and I know we are going to revisit the topic of his art probably more than once or twice in the future on the show.     In an effort to address the above grievous offenses,  I’m going to attempt to front load us with just a few coherent words before the debauch commences because frankly, it makes me feel better! As always, what follows is an adult show with some light Cannabis use , and this time- more than a bit of potty mouth Steve. Sorry about that, Mom- if you’re listening!   NOTE: Before we jump into Hemp History, I want to take one moment to thank Alex Barbarian from Soundcloud for the chill background soundtrack. Please check Alex out using the provided link in the show notes, and let him know you found him through our community! Alex- you’re the man! First up, Some Hemp History Timeline, starting in the 1940’s Document Link     Next: Old Business- mentioned last week was WA State House Bill 1092- On the growing of plants in our humble abodes..   HB 1092 seeks to reform WA Cannabis law to allow for home growing of cannabis plants for any adults over 21 years of age Bill is currently in the House, in committee Bill needs to make it on House of Reps calendar, and Pass the Chamber before moving on to the same process (Introduce, Committee, Calendar, Vote) on the Senate floor Once passed in the House and Senate, HB 1092 must still be ratified by the Governor before passing into law   Details and limitations as described in the Bill Digest, below We have subscribed to the email updates for this bill, and listeners here in WA can do the same by following the link to the bill here in the show notes.   HB 1092 - DIGEST Allows the possession of no more than six marijuana plants and up to twenty-four ounces of useable marijuana harvested from lawfully grown plants if the person in possession is at least twenty-one years old. Allows the possession of no more than twelve marijuana plants and forty-eight ounces of useable marijuana, in the aggregate, by the adult residents of a single housing unit, regardless of the number of persons who are at least twenty one years old residing in the housing unit   Advocacy for Incarcerated Non Violent Drug Offenders While we sit here racking up dabs and looking forward to hopefully passing legal home grow here “on the outside”, more Americans sit rotting in prison than ever before, and while things have actually begun to show signs of stabilizing, there’s no clear path to reversing the trend.  I know it’s easy not to think about those people, or to rationalize their circumstances in some way, but I hope that if you’re listening to this show we share a common belief that things like “Three strikes, you’re out”, and “Stop and Frisk’, or how about “Civil Asset Forfeiture” - are a net negative for us as a Nation, as a Culture, and as Civilized Humans. To that end, in recent discussions we have been trying to identify worthy organizations fighting the good fight on this front, that we may support them. I’ve heard of them before, but right now The Sentencing Project, at www.thesentencingproject.org- is looking like the real MVP’s for us on this issue. According to their website, we understand the following The USA leads The World in incarceration of its citizens The US incarceration rate has grown by over 500% in the past 40 years Over 2 million Americans are in prison As many as 1 in 3 Adult Black Americans have a felony conviction. (Let that one sink in for a minute as you think about voter turnout numbers in things like general elections..) TSP is working to end mandatory minimum sentencing and excessively lengthy sentences Shifting of resources FROM incarceration to community based prevention and treatment for substance abuse Examining and reforming policies and practices that contribute to racial iniquity throughout every area of the US Justice system As I said, they look like they are doing a lot of the heavy lifting here on a matter that I personally believe to be of great importance. I’m going to look into ways of supporting The Sentencing Project both personally and through vehicles like this podcast. We’ll also seek to support and publicize other worthy organizations that are fighting the good fight on this or other issues, like widespread legalization of the growing of Industrial Hemp for CBD and/or fuel production.   Smoke Session: Dipped 1G Purple Champagne Preroll- Flower, Keif, and distillate joint. Purchased at: Greenside Recreational, Des Moines WA   Famous NYC Street Fashion Photographer, Bill Cunningham (I was right!)  Current favorite Podcasts: Companeros! The Movie Podcast Money for Old Rope Two Thumbs Down the Podcast Zengineering Podcast Supernormal Brohio Podcast Those Conspiracy Guys Cold Case Murder Mysteries  

On this episode of the Pebkac Podcast the hosts discuss the validity of WiFi on a Newton, the new features of iOS 11, the leaked out Google announcements, and if they should buy a bunch of personal information with a discussion around the latest in the Equifax hacks! Follow us at jerseystudios.net  

If you are anything like me when it comes to technology, when you first read PEBKAC you may be at a loss to even begin to fathom what it means!Not to worry though as this episode's guest, Russian-born IT Infrastructure Engineer, Guennadi Kochelev, explains what it is and why everyone without exception has the potential to be a PEBKAC.IT security and connections on our phones, laptops and PCs can be one of the many frustrations when consistently working abroad - both in terms of maintaining operational performance, and keeping in touch with our loved ones back home.Guennadi gives us the breakdown of some essential IT basics, with easy to follow and implement advice that will keep your personal data safe and secure whether at home or abroad - even in the most fragile of environments.Whilst not an exhaustive list, Guennadi's light-hearted and open approach to explaining what can all too often be jargon-heavy concepts, will have you feeling a bit more IT-savvy in no time, and as he puts it, may also have you discovering your inner 'geek' too!If you would like to contact Guennadi, please email getconnectedtorooted@gmail.com for further information.© 2017-2018 RootED ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The red is flowing on this episode of PEBKAC with news of Allo launching a web interface, Galaxy Note 4 battery recalls, and making phone calls from the Google Home.  Thomas contemplates a home server rebuild and weighs the options between Hyper-V and VMWare. Follow us at jerseystudios.net

Due to a publication mistake, everyone get a bonus episode! Derek and John sit down and discuss their favorite cars from their own collections, current market and life. 

Best business books. After explaining what a PEBKAC is, Doug takes Jim through some of the library he uses to mentor his management teams. Some new, some old. Jim throws in 'Crossing the Chasm'. Doug's blog on the business book shelf. http://www.boardroommetrics.com/blog/best-business-books-20160610.htm#.V1q7xZMrL-Y Like Doug, Tom Peters thinks reading is good for leaders too! http://www.strategy-business.com/article/Tom-Peters-Wants-You-to-Read

Tivo Bolt Review Cord cutting is all the rage, but for many of us, it simply isn't an option. There's way too many members of the household that can't do without TV, you're too far from the transmitters to get over-the-air TV, or the shows you really want to watch aren't available from streaming, or you really like watching live events you can't get over-the-air. Whatever that case, cutting the cord is a non-starter. Slimming the cord, however, could totally work. And the Tivo Bolt (buy now) might be the perfect device to do it. Bolt Features From the Tivo website: “The TiVo BOLT is the shortest distance between you and your entertainment, because it combines all your options into a single box. No more switching devices, toggling inputs or juggling remotes. Whether it's from TV, available on-demand libraries or streaming apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HULU, YouTube or Pandora, TiVo BOLT delivers it all in an instant. OneSearch™ scours multiple platforms like TV and Netflix simultaneously, so your search experience is always fast, simple and seamless. No more drilling down into each app and doing multiple hunt-and-seek searches. Find shows and movies by title, actor, director or keyword—and start watching in seconds. OnePass™ tracks down every available season and episode of a show—whether it's on television or a streaming app—and creates a customizable watchlist for you. Start with the pilot episode or jump in anywhere mid-season. OnePass automatically records upcoming episodes and adds them to your list. TiVo BOLT is 33% smaller than any other product in its category, but it packs a mightier punch. With 3x the speed of our previous box and up to 3x the memory, TiVo BOLT satisfies your entertainment appetite… and your need for speed. All that power is packed into a slender, elegant package that runs your entire entertainment center. Oh, and that distinctive, arched design isn't just for looks, it serves as a clever cooling system. No more waiting for commercial breaks to be over. With a single press of a button, you can continue watching your recorded show. SkipMode works with the top 20 channels, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, AMC Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, TBS, FX, TLC, History Channel, TNT, The CW, Food Network, USA, Bravo, ABC Family, Syfy, Lifetime and HGTV. QuickMode lets you zip through your recorded shows—and shows with a buffer—30% faster than normal speed with pitch-corrected audio. You zoom along and nobody sounds like a caffeinated chipmunk. It's the ideal way to power through slow-moving news shows, sports and long-winded political debates. TiVo BOLT can handle the biggest entertainment jones. It records up to four shows at once and provides up to 1 TB of recording capacity—enough for roughly 150 hours of HD programming. Need even more? Add an external hard drive or a TiVo-ready NetGear ReadyNAS. And if you've got a new 4K Ultra HD TV, then get excited, because TiVo BOLT is 4K-compatible right out of the box.” The Bolt can be purchased in three different options. The 500 GB model goes for $199, The 1 TB model is $299, and the 2 TB option is $499. The big knock on Tivo as a cord cutting device is that it isn't free. There is a monthly or annual subscription fee associated with each DVR. There is a new Tivo Roamio OTA that doesn't have the subscription fee, but it only supports Antenna tuners, not CableCard.  The Bolt includes the first year of service for free, but after the first year, the cost goes to $150 per year or $15 per month if you pay monthly. Not great, but honestly, not that bad.  Cox charges $28.49 per month for a DVR, so the Bolt is less than half the annual cost of a Cable DVR, at least in our area. Installation The saga of getting our Bolt up and running wasn't really anything to do with the Tivo device itself, but it was quite an ordeal, so we'll tell you everything we went through so you have an understanding for what you may be in for if you decide to go the Tivo route. Since we both are (or were) Satellite TV customers, one of us had to get Cable activated to do the review. So Braden stopped by a local Cox Solution Store, activated a basic Cable package for about $40 per month, added a CableCard for an additional $2 per month and left the store quite satisfied. The whole process took about 15 minutes. What is supposed to happen is you get home, plug the CableCard into the Tivo, connect the Bolt to Coax for Cable service and you're all set. If only that was the case. First thing that happens is you call the Cable provider to pair the CableCard with your account and activate it. This was easy, but it didn't work. The tuning adapter Cox provided couldn't lock on, so the Bolt couldn't pick up any channels. The phone representative suggested a visit from a technician, so we got that scheduled. The technician arrived the following day and found the signal to the Bolt was both weak and dirty. He did some rewiring, added a signal booster and retested the line. All looked good, everything was green and should have been the perfect situation to get the Bolt working. The tuning adapter did lock on, but the Bolt was permanently stuck at 89% on the process of getting Cable channels. A quick call to HQ to un-pair and re-pair the CableCard got us past that. We could then get guide, but no video. Everything should have been working, but we just couldn't get it there. The Cox technician admitted he wasn't a Tivo expert, but said there were others who were. He would leave for the day and get us connected with a different tech that could hopefully make everything work. That other techs came two days later and found that it was a PEBKAC issue, Mea Culpa firmly on Braden's shoulders. The first time walking through the guided setup he either chose Antenna as the tuner option, or it was selected for him since the CableCard wasn't installed at the time. In any event, the Bolt didn't set itself to Cable mode when the CableCard was inserted, it stayed on Antenna mode. Trying to tune the Cable signal as if is was an Antenna of course didn't work. Re-running guided setup and selecting Cable got everything working. With guide, picture and sound. Well, sound was temporary. Not even ten minutes had passed after the second technician had left the house and sound stopped working on the Tivo. No audio whatsoever. No sound from TV programs, no sound from streaming apps, not sound effects from the Tivo. We rebooted the Tivo, unplugged the HDMI, tried a different HDMI input on the TV, nothing worked. Google to the rescue. We found others complaining of the same issue and it seems Tivo isn't a huge fan of some TV brands, and we just so happened to be installing ours connected to one of those brands (Sharp). To fix it you have to physically remove power to the TV. When you plug it back in, sound is restored. About 4 days, three Cable technicians, several calls to tech support and a ridiculous number of Google searches later, the Tivo Bolt was finally installed, working and ready for business. Use The first thing you notice about using the Bolt is that it is fast. Super fast. UI doesn't lag. Searches are crazy fast, and everything just feels like it happens when you want it to. Most DVRs, even the Hopper from Dish, have areas of the UI that lag. Searches, for example, tend to be a real chore in a lot of interfaces, but not for the Bolt. And it isn't just a guide search, or a search of your recordings, it's a search of the guide, you recordings and all the various video streaming services you have enabled. All of it in one spot. The search functionality is awesome. Which leads us to the integration of channel content and streamed content. This functionality, like the OnePass recordings, or the unified search, is amazing.  At Braden's house there were a few episodes of a couple shows that he wasn't able to record while he was getting the install issues worked out. OnePass to the rescue. He set a OnePass for those shows and it instantly populated all the episodes available, and listed where each one could be streamed from.  For those available on Hulu, you can get them for free.  If they aren't up there anymore, you can usually find them at Amazon or Vudu for a small per-episode charge.  And for the really old ones, at Netflix or Amazon Prime for free. This unified approach to content is pretty awesome. No more searching through all your video apps to see who has which show. No more wondering if you can get it for free over here or if you'll have to pay for it over there.  The only weirdness comes in when you set a OnePass for a show like Saturday Night Live, a show with over 40 seasons.  You have to adjust the filters to scope it down to just what you've recorded if you don't want to have to navigate through 40 seasons worth of episodes to find the one you just recorded a couple days ago. It's two quick button presses, but a bit strange getting used to. Anytime you switch from one user interface that you're comfortable with to a new one, there's a bit of a learning curve to get used to it. The Tivo interface is no different, but it is quite intuitive. Everyone in the family picked it up pretty quickly and Braden's wife even commented on how much better she thought the experience was than their prior DVR.  Sure the guide works a little different, the searches are a bit different, setting recordings is a bit different, but it all makes sense once you get used to it. And what they say is true, Tivo does have the best DVR interface out there. Different, but different in a good way. The Bolt also lets you stream recorded content to your phone or tablet if you're on the same network.  You can watch TV from the treadmill, or turn it on from the kitchen, without the need for another box or device. Yes, the Hopper can do that too, but not all DVRs can. And you can control the DVR: set recordings, etc. from anywhere in the world. If you're outside the home and want to watch some of the content, your app will tell you what services it is available on for streaming, so you can still watch the shows - or most of them at least - you just aren't watching the copy you have recorded on your DVR. There are a couple nits about the Bolt, though. Parental controls on the Bolt are a bit weak. It feels like they threw something in to say they had it, not really designing the feature to match what parents would want to do. If you have a lot of kids all accessing the same DVR for content, it would be nice to have a bit more granularity on what you can do.  And a lot of the menus don't wrap around. So if you're on the top option and want to get to the bottom, you have to scroll through all the options to get there, you can't just click the up button once. Same if you're at the bottom and want to get to the top. If you try to do it, the Bolt makes an error sound. Admittedly not a huge deal, but strange. Accessories The Tivo Mini ($137) unlocks a world of whole house video options.  You simply buy the mini and add a video zone. It doesn't require an additional subscription, just buy the box and away you go. It can be installed using wired Ethernet or MoCA. So if you have a coax cable but no ethernet, you're still good. If you have neither, you're stuck. It cannot be installed via WiFi. That's a huge bummer for those who like the wireless options from Dish or AT&T. But we were able to get one working using a pair of 500MB Powerline Ethernet adapters without issue. We still can't tell the difference between the direct wired Mini and the powerline wired Mini. So we found a way to get TV to a location without wired Ethernet or Coax for an additional $35. Most cable and satellite companies charge a monthly fee for the extender boxes. Dish calls them Joeys. They can run from $8 to $12 per month. With the Mini there is no additional monthly cost at all.  Using $10 per month as an average, you break even on the Mini after about 14 months. Keep in mind that the Bolt only has four tuners, so you have an upper bound on the number of Minis you can functionally add. Supposedly you can get two Bolts working at the same time to get 8 tuners in the home, but right now they manage recordings totally independently. Internet rumors claim Tivo is working on a unified view for multiple Bolts, but we don't have any information to corroborate that claim. Our local Amazon Prime Now fulfillment house happens to stock both the Tivo Mini and powerline ethernet adapters.  We were able to add a new video zone in less than three hours from “can we watch TV here?” to “we're watching TV here!” No installer required. No phone calls to tech support. It was pretty cool. Tivo Stream ($130) gives you worldwide access to your Bolt recordings and tuners. Let's be honest, this is a Tivo version of the Slingbox.  If you have one, you really don't need the other. But if you don't have a Slingbox and want to watch TV from outside the home, Tivo Stream gets you that.  There are some limitations, though. According to a Q&A at Amazon, “ it allows out of home streaming, but only if the content provider allows it. The major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox), Viacom (Comedy Central, MTV), and Discovery (TLC, Science) all BLOCK streaming, so the TiVo stream does not stream or allow the transfer of shows to another device.” Conclusion Conclusion: Tivo is pretty freaking great. For those who want to cut and or slim the cord, it is a tremendous option - and you aren't giving up anything in usability or user experience. There is a fairly decent upfront cost to acquire the gear, but in the long you you save a lot of money on your monthly service bills. It's probably a year or so to break even, but after that, it's all gravy. Image all the home theater gear you could buy with that extra money!

Regarding broadband and cable modems.

Badgers suck!Packers don't, yet!Mail Bag:One from Chris: Sarah Palin the great Misinformer.Her new slogan: "Not too shabby for a quitter."One from Earl: Vladimir Putin Orders Russian Government to Switch to Free Software by 2015.Two from Peter:1) Brett Favre and Jenn Sterger Scandal.2) PEBKAC ("Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair")or PICNIC ("Problem In Chair Not In Computer") The Rest of the Show:1) The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. (The Dream Act)  

Pig Pickin', ext3cow, RAID, SyncToy, DLT, LTO, ZFS, RAID as a backup, Consulting, motor generator, Digg.com Attempts To Suppress HD-DVD Revolt, AACS crack, DIRECTV's Anti-Piracy Enforcement, Security Isn't Just Avoiding Microsoft, Google warns of phishing sites, PEBKAC, ID10T error, Email from Scott Lewis, OpenSolaris, Solaris 10, FreeBSD vs. OSX Server, MacPorts, Vista comparison page, BitLocker

Pig Pickin', ext3cow, RAID, SyncToy, DLT, LTO, ZFS, RAID as a backup, Consulting, motor generator, Digg.com Attempts To Suppress HD-DVD Revolt, AACS crack, DIRECTV's Anti-Piracy Enforcement, Security Isn't Just Avoiding Microsoft, Google warns of phishing sites, PEBKAC, ID10T error, Email from Scott Lewis, OpenSolaris, Solaris 10, FreeBSD vs. OSX Server, MacPorts, Vista comparison page, BitLocker